


i twine my fingers (with yours)

by whal



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/F, One Shot, a little angst as a treat, fluff if you squint enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23837323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whal/pseuds/whal
Summary: Victoria touches her hair and her other arm above Max’s head. Her fingers pressing lightly at Max’s scalp. She brushes some hair out of her face and tucks it behind one ear.“Can we …” Her speech clogs and she clears her throat.“Can we talk now?”Victoria laughs, and exhales a pointed amount through her nose.“Max, this is terrible pillow talk.”
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Victoria Chase
Comments: 4
Kudos: 111





	i twine my fingers (with yours)

**Author's Note:**

> hi. my last chasefield fic was a little over a year ago and i've been wanting to write for this ship again for awhile. quarantine pulled me upside the head and i told myself to sit down and write something, so here we are :)

The thing about time traveling is that it grants her unlimited powers to go back in time. Far enough that is.

Just a few precious minutes. But the other useful thing to it is that she can make it stay. 

She didn’t tell Chloe, though. 

Maybe a part of her is afraid of what Chloe can come up with. What they would do if fatigue doesn’t get to her. 

They can rob a bank. They can steal Frank’s vehicle. 

They can go far back enough to save Rachel. 

The famed Rachel Amber. Star-struck and doe eyed in Mark Jefferson’s bunker. 

But she didn’t tell Chloe. 

And so the shot’s fired. She meets her destined blue butterfly and takes a framed picture. The lighting pours through the tiny window and into the bucket of water. 

The butterfly flaps its wings, flutters, and flies off into the distance. 

Only this time she didn’t tear off her Everyday Hero Contest’s photo. 

She keeps it on her, clutches it tightly in her school bag and inside the pages of her journal of long forgotten excerpts of her favorite books. Films. And people. 

Especially people. Or a person. 

Someone with a better physique than her. Blonde hair. Green eyes. 

A foul mouth but insecure and vulnerable underneath. Lipstick that doesn’t stain. 

Music that sticks with the crowd. 

And nights where she tears herself apart. Or ones where she tears someone else’s. 

Victoria doesn’t talk. Not usually. 

Not even drunk. 

She keeps herself slightly shut off. But she gives Max the thought that she wants more than what she needs. 

Victoria doesn’t need anything, to be exact.

Maybe a good report card to boost her four point GPA. Or new lenses. 

Or a new cardigan. 

Or someone every other night. 

Someone to remind her that she’s better than the rest of the Vortex Club group. 

Or Taylor tending to her mother in the hospital. Or Nathan in his room at night drunken in his own thoughts and forgets to take his meds. 

Not Max. 

Certainly not Max. 

Or Max at her door at two in the morning. Knocking slightly at it and glancing around blindly in the dark. 

It comes to two haunting minutes where there’s no answer on the other side. And a slight kick near the door and a click. 

Victoria’s room is dimly lit. Except for the black and white mute movie she puts on. 

The screen frames two women, drunken, in love.

Victoria is beside the TV, palm digging into one of her eyes to elevate the pressure off of it. 

Silence. 

Max sits down on her couch. Victoria joins her, feet groggy and hair messy enough that she’d remember it in the morning. 

“Do we always have to meet like this?” 

“We don’t have to.” 

Victoria answers, matter of factly. 

“Do you want to?”

Victoria shakes her head. Slowly. Her face in between the cupping of her hands. Elbows on her knees. 

The TV’s static wavers. 

“Do you want to do something about it?” 

Victoria nods. Chin to her palm and she breathes forcefully through her nose. As if sighing. 

“To date you, maybe.” 

But then she scoffs. Face on the TV screen and fingers idly tracing the black table. 

It’s like she doesn’t care.

Max’s eyes waver. “Do you really want to?”

Victoria’s eyebrows creased. And she nods. And she says, “Yes.”

“Then can we talk--”

Victoria stands up and she has this annoyed look to her face, and she tells Max to shove it.

“No, Max. Sleep first.” 

Victoria prances to her closet and changes out of her cardigan and skirt. 

Max looks away. At the TV. The static. Victoria’s figurine as it glows. The beer bottles on the windowsill. 

When Victoria settles down to bed Max climbs in next to her. 

“Come.” Victoria says and her arms an open invitation. 

Max shifts in and she wraps one arm around Victoria’s middle, fingers feeling the soft fabric. 

Victoria doses off and Max watches her face. She can smell the faint shampoo in Victoria’s hair. 

And Victoria’s skin. 

And she sleeps with it. 

(do you dream of her?)

Max wakes up from her dream. Of headlights soaking through the fog on a cold spring night. Someone shouting and waving down from the street.

And a drunk driver. 

Victoria touches her hair and her other arm above Max’s head. Her fingers pressing lightly at Max’s scalp. She brushes some hair out of her face and tucks it behind one ear. 

“Can we …” Her speech clogs and she clears her throat. 

“Can we talk now?”

Victoria laughs, and exhales a pointed amount through her nose. 

“Max, this is terrible pillow talk.” 

And Max chuckles.

Somewhere along the way Max tells Victoria about her superpowers. The timeline where Chloe gets shot, and Nathan serves jail time. 

Or the other one. More vivid. Intense. 

Her in her purple cardigan; a vertical black and white striped shirt, and white jeans. 

The one where she had a better book bag. A better camera. Better pictures of Victoria. 

Max didn’t confess in that timeline. Victoria did.

It was at a Vortex Club party. Where the disco lights frame Victoria’s jawline better. 

She didn’t shout it out over the loud music, though. 

They were in the VIP section, Max on Victoria’s lap and her chin on her shoulder. The slow song came on and she whispered to herself. And Max kissed her. 

They stumbled in the dorm’s corridor, hands on each other’s hips as Max hastily opened her door. They fell on Max’s bed. 

Two women, drunken, in love.

And the sun rose up the next day. 

And they looked almost so happy, out and basking in the sun. But they fought too. They fought so much that they tore each other apart. 

Sometimes the Max in that timeline wondered what could have gone different. 

They looked almost so happy, her and Victoria, while they bleed to death from the wounds they didn’t know about. 

Maybe that was why Chloe wanted Max to end her life. 

  
  


In this timeline, Nathan ends up shooting at the bathroom door and injures someone else. 

Chloe lives. 

But Rachel Amber is still missing. 

Nathan writes Victoria an email. He knows he was sharp before. But he’s sorry. 

That he meant to be cooler. Or colder. 

But he didn’t know how to make people listen. He didn’t know if Victoria needed him like he needed her. 

But it isn’t the problem here. He asked her if anyone can hear him. 

If he was still alive. And breathing. 

And sometimes he’d imagine what it would be like if him and Victoria had walkie talkies. 

Would they work?

Would he be able to mutter “over” before he ended up carrying a gun and tried shooting Chloe Price?

Or is it the fact that they’d never work, the walkie talkies that is. 

Since his head was in the way. 

And his meds long gone, spilled on his bed. 

And he ends the email with the realization that it was just him all along. 

  
  


Two days after that Nathan starts serving jail time. 

Victoria cries all night and she drags herself out of bed at six in the morning. 

Her eyes aren't swollen but her heart feels heavy. 

Comes her morning shower and her morning routine. She sees Max brushing her teeth and she wonders what person she’d be like if she keeps a gratitude journal, and believes in the ideas of manifestation. 

But she scoffs at it. 

She worked her way so hard up and sometimes she still dreams of the nights where she was still 16. In her parents’ house. And shouting. And raging. 

Maybe Max does it. That is, the type to throw herself on the mercy of the universe. 

And then some day the universe will be merciful. And it will give back. 

But as Victoria applies makeup to her face, her other hand on the bathroom sink, she knows that happiness isn’t so simple as a mirror work. 

That she can’t go on looking at herself in the mirror even far enough for five minutes. And she won’t be able to mutter to herself that _I love you I love you I love you_. 

She isn’t so sure if she wouldn’t burst into tears.

Because she knows Nathan would. He would burst into tears in every way that he knew he hadn't loved himself. 

  
  


Photography class. 

Victoria stares out at the long windows and looks at the rustles of trees as the leaves fall. 

Maxine Caulfield raises her hand to answer a question, and she’s never felt so bothered. 

She looks at Max with such a scary uncertainty that Max is taken back. 

Somewhere along the way she stopped caring. 

  
  


But Max finds her later. On the rooftop. 

(And the Max in her bed right now tells her Kate committed suicide in other timelines. And she was the cause of it.)

(She finds it harder to believe. But she’s mean. And sometimes she wished she wasn’t.)

A cigarette between her fingers and a beer bottle in the other hand. 

The wind blows. And Max talks to her. 

“Mister Jefferson.”

“What about him?”

Victoria steps on her cigarette and puts it out. 

“He has … these files. Of girls. Around our age.”

“How do you know?”

Max digs her fingernails into her palm. 

“I found Rachel’s photos.”

“Rachel Amber?”

Max nods. And she says, “Yeah.”

Victoria sets her beer bottle down and she crosses her arms.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“There’s empty files. Next to Rachel’s.”

The wind picks up. 

“With name labels.”

Max starts to shiver as the wind tousles her hair. 

“Maxine Caulfield.”

She digs her fingernails deeper into her palms. 

“... Chloe Price.”

The girl that almost got shot, Victoria realizes.

“Kate Marsh.”

“And Victoria Chase.”

Victoria’s spine chills. Her heart skips a beat. 

It starts to rain. And the sun is still shining. 

  
  


Nathan Prescott confesses two weeks later. Mark Jefferson gets escorted out of campus during the second period. 

Victoria is just right on time to witness it. She doesn’t spare a second glance when he looks at her. 

  
  


Somewhere along the way Victoria finds herself in Max’s room. Watching a movie on Max’s laptop. 

They’re in bed, blankets draped around them. The movie plays in the background and Max’s head is on her shoulder. Fast asleep.

She didn’t dream of storms that night. But she did hear gunshots in her sleep. 

Chloe’s gasp. Nathan’s horrified eyes. 

She did see Victoria’s lifeless body. 

She wakes up at five in the morning, her body still in REM stages as it shakes. 

Max reaches for Victoria and she’s sweating profusely. She only stops clutching at Victoria’s shirt when Victoria looks at her with concern. 

But Victoria never asks her what her dream was about. 

  
  


Max confesses, then. Every moment she experiences in every timeline. 

About how she watches Chloe die with the gunshot. Or the one where she didn’t. And they rode off to the sun. 

The one where Victoria was dead. The one where they hated each other’s guts. 

Max tells her she found a loophole. 

In between the universes that she altered. In other dimensions that she went through. 

The one here, now, where her and Victoria are happy. 

Or the one before that. Or at least Max doesn’t remember. 

One where Max describes Victoria’s face as delicate. And it’s what ruined her. 

That her features were sharper in Max’s memory. Her body grows once Max leaves the room.

Or sometimes Victoria was so mean that Max touches her, grabs her arms, and she thought Max would rip it off. 

But she didn’t. She twines her fingers with Victoria’s. 

And she commented about how small they are. 

Victoria tells her it was in this timeline. 

And she says, “You remember too much.”

She touches Max’s face and cradles it with her palm. 

“Why hold onto that?”

And somewhere along the way Max starts to cry. 

And she replies, “Where can I put it down?”

Victoria gestures to herself, and she says, “Here.” 

  
  


Max found a loophole. She repeats it to Victoria. 

“I found a loophole.” 

She says. 

Max lives forever. That’s what she’s discovered. 

Time loops itself in and out and Max will live forever and if this relationship continues, she will watch Victoria die off. 

And she will still be breathing. 

Even if the church bells ring loudly in her head as they carry her body into her casket. 

And Victoria is fine with that. 

And Max nods along with it, some time later. 

And Victoria kisses her. 

**Author's Note:**

> i love talking to people. so comments are much appreciated!


End file.
